


The Air in My Lungs.

by vibranium



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: F/M, Minor Violence, Non-Explicit Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-21
Updated: 2013-01-21
Packaged: 2017-11-26 08:55:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/648830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vibranium/pseuds/vibranium
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>It starts with a mission in Florence and ends with stitches on arms and sides, bruises littering scar-marred skin, and a lot of comfortable silence.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Air in My Lungs.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi :) First fic on here, so kudos, comments, anything is really helpful. Wanna thank Goose for being the best beta and for the major hand-holding. Hope you enjoy the story. P.S. There's a lot of Italian speech in here, nothing Google can't tame.
> 
> Take note that while I tagged this as 'Minor Violence,' someone else might take it as more than just minor. Just a warning that there IS a bit of violence. Nothing overly graphic.
> 
> Title from Broken Crown by Mumford and Sons.

It starts with a mission in Florence and ends with stitches on arms and sides, bruises littering scar-marred skin, and a lot of comfortable silence.

 

Over the years, the two assassins have worked so well together, and even when they are separated on a mission, they know the other is watching. Sometimes, they even try and impress the other with whatever they are doing. Tonight is not a night to try and impress. Tonight they are not Clint and Natasha. Tonight is a night to seduce, retrieve, and take out as quickly as possible. Tonight they are Alessandra Luoci and Guilio Bartella.

 

Both Clint and Natasha suppose this mission is going to be easy, though when they arrive at the large party that is swarming with people and proceed to take in their surroundings, they quickly find themselves to be very, _very_ wrong. Even as they each go their separate ways, Clint fiddling with his suit jacket and Natasha adjusting the straps of her dress, it is easy to notice that each of them are being followed. While they know they can take down their pursuers, they think that perhaps these men and women could be of use to them later, should they have trouble getting to the mark.

 

And it’s true. Natasha cannot enter the back hall of the ballroom due to some high security (also known as short, robust men who believe they’re much more important since they’re protecting a thief and a liar) blocking the mouth of it. She very easily identifies one of the men that had been close behind her the entire time she made her way around and conversed with the party guests, saunters up to him as he sits at the bar amongst some of his friends she has not had the chance to see before. While she walks up to her temporary mark, she takes in every detail she can about his friends and he himself, possible places they could be hiding weapons and the way they hold themselves and speak and gesture.

 

Using whatever tactics necessary, Natasha finally gets the man to bring her past those ‘security guards.’ Once out of their sight, she knocks her temporary mark unconscious and very discreetly pushes him into one of the vacant rooms once she picks the lock.

 

Clint watches from wherever he can, mingling with the guests and ignoring the stories he’s being told. He sips at the same glass of whiskey for over an hour, and by the time he’s nearly done, it’s far more water than alcohol. He and his partner have set up a time; if, after thirty five minutes, the marksman does not see Natasha walking out of that room and signaling for him to wait outside the main doors of the ballroom, he himself will have to find a way down that hallway.

 

He has no doubts, of course, that she can do it in much less time.

 

Beyond the door, Natasha finds herself in bit of a predicament. Her space is immediately crowded by tall, slim, though not very menacing-looking men. There are five of them, and she knows very well that it’ll only take her about fifty four seconds for her to take down one of them. The one at her back is grabbing her arms and another is pulling at her dress, and she really doesn’t like where this is going.

 

She’s got thirty five minutes to take care of this, and while she too knows she can easily be done in less time, she’ll be slightly hindered by these far too touchy men.

 

Natasha knows she must be as quiet as possible; the mark can’t quite know that she’s taking down (who she thinks are) his men. She kicks back at the man behind her’s shin, satisfied at the dull crunching and the grunt that she hears, but another man is already taking his place. His grip is tighter, but when she aims higher, his grip is gone and not as quickly replaced. She lashes out and two men are down but only slightly dazed from her ministrations. As she continues on knocking these men unconscious, she wonders idly why they are here and all over her. Perhaps she has entered the wrong room.

 

It can’t be that. No one swarms a stranger like that the second they enter a room.

 

Natasha straightens herself out and moves around the unconscious bodies on the ground, pushing them out of sight of the door she noticed earlier, then finds herself in front of that very door, slightly indented into the wall, with a hazy window that do not allow her to see into it. She falls into character easily (it’s something that she hates about herself, that she can become someone else, someone so completely different, so smoothly and without a problem) and calls out, “Ciao? C'è qualcuno qui?” because she is still in Florence and she assumes that, as well as the people can speak English, she needs to keep her cover.

 

The redhead approaches the door, ignoring the faint clicking of her heels against the tile that continues on even in this separate room of the large, fancy building she is in. She knocks lightly with the knuckles of two fingers. “Ciao? Potrebbe eventualmente dirmi dove mi trovo? Ho perso la mia strada intorno e non riesco a trovare la mia amica.”

 

When the mark comes to the door, Natasha can see him through the falsely-fogged window. He seems close enough (from what she can tell) to the man in the images that SHIELD had provided her and Clint with. “Buona sera, signorina. Come posso auitare?” he asks once the door is no longer between them, a hint of a smile curving his lips but growing larger and larger as he takes Natasha in.

 

She smiles up at him with no malice, with as much flirty attention should could possibly give him, and lets her eyes roam as if she’s actually interested in him, as he had done to her, as Alessandra would, and repeats what she had said when she was knocking on the door. The man nods and moves from the doorway, which is exactly what Natasha wants, saying, “Vieni, vieni, ah, Signorina…?”

 

“Luoci. Alessandra, per favore,” she replies immediately, taking small, tentative steps into the office that, from what she can see, is very open but also very poorly lit.

 

“Che bel nome, Alessandra,” the mark comments, following her into the office at a slow pace, almost like a predator stalking prey. He shuts the door only slightly, leaving it open a sliver, and moves to sit behind his desk.

 

“Perché non sei alla tua festa, signore?” Natasha asks without replying to his compliment on her false identity, very carefully taking her seat in one of the plush chairs in front of his chest, ankles crossed in front of her and her hands loosely clasped in her lap.

 

She takes in the fact that the mark raises an eyebrow at her question, sitting forward and resting his elbows on his desk, watching her closely as he thinks over his reply. “Come ti trovi qui? Questa non è esattamente una stanza i miei ospiti inciampano su. Mai.” As he waits for an explanation, he reaches into a pocket inside his jacket and pulls out a cigar. The action doesn’t make Natasha flinch or stiffen, because she knows a gun cannot exactly fit well inside a suit jacket without looking bulky (as she’s told Clint many times before). She can deal with knives, and by the look of this man, he doesn’t seem like he’d have very good aim when throwing anything at a target, moving or not, near or far.

 

He picks up the lighter from his desk and sticks the end of the cigar between his lips, lighting it and letting smoke drift from his mouth. His eyes are glazing over her in a way that’s always made her uncomfortable, in a way she’s had to grow used to. She can’t exactly pick the way the marks stare at her, and that’s not her fault; it’s the fault of the Red Room. But that’s a story for a different time.

 

His words, though, make her react as quickly as she can without giving away that she’s had her story prepared since she boarded the jet with Clint two days prior, her eyes ignoring the smoke beginning to float around his features. “La mia amica ed io eravamo sguardo per il bagno e l'ho perso, così ho chiesto a uno degli ospiti se potevano aiutarmi e lui mi ha portato lungo il corridoio.” As the redhead speaks, the flashes the man across from her a pretty, innocent smile, batting her lashes a bit at him.

 

As he thinks over his response, Natasha discreetly looks down at her watch. She’s still got a bit under twenty minutes to seduce this man and take the information from his computer, which she’d spotted in the corner of the dim room as soon as she’d walked in. That’s more than enough time.

 

Back out in the main room, Clint is making his rounds, sizing up the men he know are associated with the mark, with their Mr. Francesco Veneziano, explosives dealer. The man is notorious for having a bunch of men to back him up, simply for the fact that, as good as negotiating deals he is, he’s not as great as managing his money.

 

The marksman can tell that Veneziano picks certain men for their brawn and others for their brains, because honestly, they’ve all got the same insignia on the lapels of their suit jackets, but there are many of these Italian men who wouldn’t be able to put up much of a fight.

 

As he picks up a flute of champagne from one of the trays going around the room, he looks at the watch he wears, one of Coulson’s most prized possessions that he rarely lets Barton wear, and notes the time. He’s feeling a little anxious but refuses to let it show. It’s only been ten minutes since he saw Natasha slip into the back and shove a man into a utility closet. She’s fine on her own, he knows this.

 

By the time Clint has picked up his flute of champagne, Natasha is standing up and moving around the mark’s desk, asking his name and giving him an almost secret, tiny smile, one that promises something that the man surely will never get. The mark finally gives her the name she’s been looking for, and god is she glad that these past twenty minutes haven’t been a waste.

 

She feels disgusting, dirty when she climbs onto Veneziano’s lap, and don’t get her wrong, she’s always felt dirty and wrong to be sitting in the laps of men who are disgusting, who want her body and don’t suspect anything of their oncoming fates. Ever since the Red Room trained her to become the perfect little seductress, she’s been taking down men with her body and her lips and her voice, then with her bare hands or her guns. It’s never been different.

 

Regardless of what she feels, Natasha straddles the mark, her dress riding up her legs slightly. His hands are on her immediately and she has to fake it, has to be convincing. She needs to make this man think that she wants this, that she’s okay with it. So she closes her eyes and sighs almost contently and goes with it, lets him kiss her everywhere but her mouth or face.

 

After a few minutes of roaming hands and lips, the mark is filling out under Natasha and she hates where this is going. It’s all the part of the job, though, when she rocks in his lap, grinding down against him to let him think he’s going to get just what he wants from her, let him feel _glad_ he didn’t go to his own party and mingle with his guests. She puts her hands on his shoulders and lets them creep slowly up to the sides of his neck. She pulls him back as he starts to suck at her neck, clicking her tongue and shaking her head at him.

 

Francesco is getting too handsy for Natasha’s taste (not that she likes him touching her at all), so she decides that after a few moments of that, she’ll secure him to the chair and get the information out of him. She does just that, moving his tie up to his mouth to shut him up once she can access his computer with the details he’s given her. He’s tied to the chair, and once everything he’s stolen and used as contact information is on Natasha’s flash drive, she’s ruining the computer itself, tower and screen and all.

 

She thanks him for his cooperation in perfect English, knowing he understands, and pulls a knife from her garter, ignoring his muffled pleas for his life and cutting open his throat. She makes sure she looks perfectly presentable, that there’s no blood on her dress and that her hair doesn’t look out of place, then calls in for clean up, tucking the flash drive into her bra.

 

After she hangs up and slips her phone away, she makes her way back out to the main room, checking the time. She could’ve taken her time, really, in killing that pig of a man, because she notices she’s still got about seven minutes left. She would’ve made a mess; would it have been worth it? Too late, she slips back out into the party. She fits in well once more with the unknowing crowd, acting as if she’d never left, but once she catches Clint’s eye and gives him the discreet signal, she’s giving apologies and taking her leave.

 

Natasha doesn’t have to wait very long before Clint is moving outside of the large hall. He reaches to put his arm around her shoulders but she gently brushes him off. She can still feel Veneziano’s hands and mouth all over her and she doesn’t want to be touched, not for a bit. She needs to shower, to scrub at her skin until it’s raw and she can’t feel anything but the sting of soap and hot water.

 

The marksman purses his lips but doesn’t speak, knowing the way his partner gets sometimes after a seduction mission.  What he doesn’t know, won’t know until she tells him, is if she killed the man. She was given the option, which she usually isn’t; it was either knock the mark out and detain him, or kill him. He was too big of a threat to let continue on, with or without the information he’d stolen.

 

Clint hails a taxi anyway, and the partners climb in, sitting close together but not touching. He tells the driver where to bring them, then turns to Natasha, looking over the way she’s holding herself and the expression she’s wearing. He carefully fixes the strap of her dress, makes sure not to touch her skin, and sighs when she doesn’t even look at him. Surprisingly, though, about halfway to the hotel they’ve been set up in, the spy leans her head on her partner’s shoulder, scooting closer to him and remaining quiet. He doesn’t move to put an arm around her, just lets her lean against him.

 

He tentatively helps her out of the cab after they arrive and everything is paid off, and she keeps a tight hold on his hand even as they step into the elevator. She moves into his side again, her head on his shoulder, and stays like that as they walk to the hotel rooms they have, one next to the other. He walks her to hers, and she slips inside, pulling him behind her. “Stay,” she says in a quiet voice, and it sounds almost like a plea. She doesn’t see him nod when she goes to her luggage to grab out clothes.

 

She showers as quickly as she can as to not keep him waiting, scrubbing roughly at her skin and trying not to cry. Another man has touched her, has added that red to her ledger, kissed her skin and been killed at her hand. He was a bad man, and that wiped away some of the debt, but the feeling, or really the lack thereof as she killed him made her ledger gush and gush with so much red that she felt like she was going to drown in it. No matter what, the Widow doesn’t cry; she cannot afford to.

 

She cuts the water and dries off quickly, getting dressed in underclothes and pajamas. She looks at the dress she’d worn with such hate. It’d been beautiful before it became a symbol for seduction in her mind. Now she wants to burn it until it’s nothing but ashes that she can wash down a drain.

 

Natasha walks out of the bathroom and gives Clint a tiny smile. He’s still sitting on her bed in the same spot as before, looking down at his hands. She moves to sit next to him and takes one of his hands in hers, their fingers lacing together almost naturally. “Will you let me stay with you tonight?” she asks quietly. She never stays with him, especially not after missions such as these, but tonight she needs someone.

 

The bowman looks up, his eyes searching over his partner’s face. He needs to look for something to assure himself that she’s not just staying with him because she feels guilty for pushing him away after she’d dealt with Veneziano. He needs to know that she’s okay with sharing a bed with him. When he finds that she’s sincere, that she’s calm, he nods slowly and squeezes her hand gently. “Of course,” he murmurs, standing only when she does.

 

They don’t speak as they walk, still hand in hand, into his room, the door to hers locking securely behind them. Clint undresses and showers and when he walks back out, he’s in boxers and pajama pants, and Natasha is already lying in the too-fluffy hotel bed. He joins her easily after toweling off his hair, and she draws his arms around her, pressing herself up against him. She asks him to kiss her and he does, her pale, thin hands roaming slowly against his warm, bare chest, tracing over every scar she knows like the back of her hand.

 

Clint is the only man she would let kiss her like this. He takes his time with her, is sure but hesitant at the same time. He wants to make sure that she’s okay with whatever he gives her, and he cares that she’s all right with what she gets from him. So he’s slow and thorough and sweet, even, when she wants him to be, rough when she _needs_ him to be. But tonight is a night when she needs slow, when she needs to be cared for. She needs something else, too, something that prods at her in the back of her mind, something she absolutely refuses to admit, that four letter word that she cannot define unless she thinks of Clint and the way he is with her. She doesn’t bring up the topic, not ever, because she feels that she doesn’t have to. Perhaps it’s a silent, mutual thing between them; they don’t have to speak of it to know it’s there.

 

That night, they slot together so well, and for all the times they’ve done this, it’s never quite felt so completely right. She always leaves his bed, and he hers, but tonight they collapse, tangled: tangled red curls, tangled legs and arms and bodies, curled around each other, like they are the only things protecting each other from everything else, including themselves.

 

Is it meant to feel this way, when you finally (silently) agree with the other that you’re actually going to stay, embrace them, fall asleep with your arms around them and their arms around you? Meant to feel that every time before this, every time you left, was a mistake, because you’re so comfortable out of your own bed and in the other’s instead, and they yours?

 

Neither of them knows what it is (or, really, do they?), but they both feel it as they fall asleep, eyes shut and chests rising and falling against the other. Is it that same feeling that Natasha felt as they began with the roaming hands and the gentle, slow kisses? Is this what she needs? What he needs? She breathes in and he breathes out and it just feels so damn perfect that she never wants to leave, always wants to lay in his embrace, or he in hers, so they can always fall asleep together and wake up next to the other, and honestly? It’s what both of them need, and she thinks it’s the best feeling in the world, and, well, so does he.

 


End file.
